Ulcerative colitis has been rapidly growing in the number of patients in Japan since the 1970's. Main complaints of the disease include bloody diarrhea, abdominal pains and the like. It is a chronic and diffuse disease of the large intestine, and, after the initial onset at the rectum, it expands in an ascending manner to the deep part of the large intestine with repeated remissions and flare-ups. The etiology of the disease is unknown at present although its association with the diet has been studied because the incidence of the disease increased with the Westernization of eating habits of the Japanese people. Some researchers suggest that disease may be an autoimmune one, but no proposals on the etiology have obtained public acceptance so far. Very few drugs known today are effective for the treatment of the disease except that a salazosulfapyridine is considered to have a therapeutic effect on mild cases of the disease. However, this drug is an antibiotic which is administered in large quantities and thereby may cause problematic side effects such as diarrhea.
Even a possible therapeutic drug for ulcerative colitis currently under development is a mere improvement of the salazosulfapyridine, and the problem of its side effects has not been completely solved.
Incidentally, cancer ranks top as a cause of deaths in Japan today. It is an extremely intractable disease and the ratio of its successful treatment is not very high at present. Current treatments of cancer include surgical removal, radiation exposure, chemotherapy (administration of anti-cancer agents), immunological therapy, etc., with great strides being made in each method. However, cancer treatment by a single method is believed to be a very difficult challenge.
The surgical process is a very effective means since it removes the tumor cells themselves but its sole use cannot attain a complete cure and, hence, radiation therapy and chemotherapy are simultaneously applied in most cases. The biggest problem encountered in this case is the side effects resulting from the radiation therapy and the chemotherapy. Either therapy attacks cancerous cells having high proliferating activities, so naturally severe damages are also inflicted upon tissues having high rate of growth such as mucosal epithelial cells. As a result, the intestinal mucosa is greatly damaged thereby causing a significant reduction in the absorption of orally administered nutrients and an ensuing severe diarrhea, which ultimately put the patient in a greatly damaged condition. In an extreme case, the patient may eventually die. However, very few effective means have so far been available that can protect the damage of intestinal mucosa and prevent diarrhea.
If the bowels of patients suffering from colon cancer, Crohn's disease, etc., are extensively excised, post-operative dyspepsia and insufficient absorption of electrolytes may cause the patients to have difficulty in normal bowel movement resulting in an extremely high incidence of diarrhea etc., and this can badly affect the patients in leading their normal social life. The same problem is shared by patients who were forced to have an artificial anus for some reason. As a means to solve these problems, there may be mentioned an oral liquid diet that leaves very little residue after absorption. However, the oral liquid diet causes many problems on the part of patients, such as economic burdens, some pains encountered in uptake, and mental burdens due to regulated diets. Thus, there has been a great demand for an effective means that can alleviate these burdens.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide safe materials that can solve the problems stated above.
It is another object of the present invention to provide pharmaceutical compositions and food compositions comprising said material.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method of treating ulcerative colitis.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a method of preventing or reducing the side effects of cancer treatments.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method of improving the bowel movement of patients who have undergone intestinal ablation or patients with an artificial anus.